Bing: No One Uses Us, So We’ll Pay You To Use It!

I’m fairly sure this probably should be a Twitter update instead of a weblog post, but I’m going to go for it anyway. I’m also not much of a tech writer, so please forgive me for coming across as a bit idiotic. In my daily life, I use multiple operating systems on multiple computers. I use Windows 10 mostly, followed by Mac OS, then Ubuntu. I use Windows 10 a majority of my work because it’s most dependable for me. My MacBook Pro and I are enemies. I hate that thing. It’s been excruciatingly slow since day one. What takes me 5 minutes to do on a Windows computer takes me about 30 minutes on that Mac. I just hate it and use it as a last resort. If I need to do something quick that doesn’t involve Adobe Creative Cloud apps, I use Ubuntu. A bit of a KDE flavor, I guess you could say. I can still get work done on it.

Now that I’ve given you that little bit of useless information, I will confess something. I’m writing this using on the Microsoft Edge browser. To me, it’s not so bad, but I’m one of those people who really likes the Google integration of Chrome since my small business uses G Suite.

There’s a reason I am using Edge though and it’s quite a hilarious reason. No one really wants to use Edge or Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, so they have to give incentives for people to use it. That comes in the form of earning points for doing web searches and using the browser. I think if it wasn’t for that, I honestly wouldn’t bother. I actually DO like Bing’s image search though, so it’s not so bad.

A little thing about those points that you earn from Microsoft is that I stockpiled over $60 in Skype credits the last time I was in Texas for three months. Back then, it was a USA thing, so I had fun using it and adding to my Skype balance. I came to Australia and well, they detected that I was in Australia and the point earning stopped. Recently, they brought the Microsoft Rewards system to Australia so I’m back to earning points. I thought that it’s a good time to give Edge a go and really, it’s not that bad. It feels a bit slower than the Webkit-based browsers, but it still gets the job done.

It makes me think what it would be like if Google incentivized their browser and searches. They don’t need to though because most people already use it but wouldn’t it be great to earn towards something like a Chromecast (which I already have so…)?

I just find it interesting is that the rewards system is pretty much the only reason why I use Edge and Bing. It’s just kind of weird that I’d do something like that but it’s a bit of a nerdy rush to see my points increase like they do. I’ll probably just keep adding to my Skype balance though I hardly ever use it. I’ve been thinking of just getting a Skype number and then I remember that no one ever calls me anymore so maybe I can just keep saving for something else. I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s it from me. It’s just something that was floating around in my head. 🙂 By the way, no one coerced me to write this thing. Seriously.